


Heavy Holes and Familiarity

by AndallitsGlory



Category: The Authority
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Domestic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-05
Updated: 2013-05-05
Packaged: 2017-12-10 12:33:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/786098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndallitsGlory/pseuds/AndallitsGlory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of Revolution, Apollo and Midnighter reconcile.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heavy Holes and Familiarity

**Author's Note:**

> As much as I love the Revolution run, I am of the opinion that it ended rather abruptly. I think most fans of Midnighter and Apollo would agree given we never see the two reunite and fix their marriage. So here's my take on how that might go. Hope you enjoy!

Midnighter’s muscles tensed as he entered their old apartment, a hollow shell of former domesticity. The familiarity of having made this same movement perhaps hundreds of times in the past caused him to expect familiarity in his surroundings. He knew it wasn’t going to be the same, but there existed the part of the mind, the part that remembered patterns and the comfort within them, that no one could change. 

All was gone. The outlines the furniture must have left when it was moved had long faded away. His armchair in the corner of what had been the living room and the bookcase next to it. The sofa that had sat across from the TV. Originally, they had purchased a suede, sage loveseat, but soon found it stained too easily. They had had a bad habit--that Apollo always said they should have stopped as to not to pass it down to Jenny--of eating while watching TV instead of at the kitchen table. It hadn’t been dropped greasy pizza or spilled sauce, however, which finally led them to toss the thing. A cushion had torn during a spontaneous incident of love-making and they decided the loveseat, only a few months old, had to go. Midnighter had replaced it with what he had wanted in the first place, a couch made of distressed, dark brown leather. 

He wondered now if it had found its way to Apollo and their daughter’s house in San Francisco or if it went the same way as the loveseat.

The kitchen began where carpet gave way to gray tile. This room was more the same as it always had been because of the permanence of the utilities and counters, although the marble countertops and the shelves of the cherry oak cabinets were dusty from disuse. The refrigerator was too dark and quiet to give Midnighter the impression that he could open the door and take out a pack of lunchmeat and mustard, which he always used to do right after a workout. There would be none of Apollo’s brand of peanut butter in the door or Jenny’s Red Delicious apples. Midnighter turned his back and brought himself towards the bedroom.

He expected, yet again, what was not there. Their canopy bed, which had been their marriage bed and their bed before then. The mattress that had soaked up nights’ worth of sweat from passionate sex and the sheets he always ironed smooth, but never stayed that way for long. The pillows he awoke on every morning to see his husband as soon as he opened his eyes. His white-blond, bronze-skinned Sun God. Sometimes Apollo slept through Midnighter’s inching closer and pressing skin against warmer skin. Most of the time, he stirred and opened squinty baby blues before giving off a beam that lit up Midnighter’s entire universe. 

That smile… It had been one of the hardest things to lose when Midnighter spent the last three years waking up cold and alone in random alleys and condemned buildings. It had not been difficult to return to living rough after years of domestic comfort; one did not forget how to survive in such a situation. Yet it had been so much harder because for the first time he could remember he was without his partner. It was if an integral part of the killing machine he was broke off of him, leaving the other pieces to rust with a gaping hole in the center. Holes were supposed to be hollow like these rooms and therefore weightless. The hole inside of him, however, had the weight of a Titan. It dragged after him day-after-day, causing the rusty remainders of him to creak louder and louder.

How did he refrain from snapping at Apollo just hours ago when his husband had scoffed at him while they had been face-to-face for the first time in years? Couldn’t he see how much Midnighter was carrying for him? “Look at you. You’re right back where you started.” No, he hadn’t been anywhere close to where he started. If he had been, Apollo would have been by his side instead of staring down at him with pity and condescension.

All that weight. A needless sacrifice in the end. A mistake made by an idiot, a fool that fell for a prank played by the man he most hated. Midnighter’s hands clenched, protected by his gloves from being punctured by their own nails. Well, it was Bendix’s last joke. Even if it wasn’t and the bastard was resurrected once again, Midnighter had plenty of his own jokes in mind. Ripping Bendix’s spine out was funny, yet Midnighter’s implants were counting out hundreds of other hilarious tricks that he could play.

“Aren’t you going to come in?”

That was his husband, perched on the wide curve beneath the window where he used to recline with a magazine or sketchpad. Sometimes he would sit there only to contemplate and watch the world go by, which Midnighter presumed he had been doing before he had seen Midnighter standing in the threshold. Once there had been red cushions in that spot to make it comfortable. They were gone too.

Apollo’s halo was dim and the light from the window had thrown his face into shadow. Midnighter only saw the swelling forehead, the black eyes eyes, and the piece of tissue plugged up one of Apollo’s nostrils when he approached. Wounds that had been inflicted by h—by Bendix through him.

“Why haven’t you gone to heal up?” He found himself averting his eyes as he asked this and resented Apollo for not tanning off in the Caribbean or somewhere equally sunny, the light smoothing his features back to flawlessness.

“Didn’t quite want to lose the marks of battle yet.” Apollo did not avert his eyes, but fixed them onto Midnighter. They couldn’t have burned Midnighter much more if the Sun God activated his heat vision.

“That’s stupid. This whole thing isn’t going to go away soon as you stop bleeding.”

“Then let’s just say I really don’t want to re-grow teeth right now,” Apollo sighed. When Midnighter did not respond, he gestured to the free space next to him. “Sit down?”

Bendix’s blood still drenched the entire left side of Midnighter’s trench coat, from the elbow all the way to the tail. He had dripped a path through the apartment, ignoring the damp feeling in his arm. He shrugged the coat off and let it crumple to a heap on the floor, a careless treatment of clothing that used to be unlike him. The gloves followed a moment after, but the lifting of his hood was slower. His face had not been exposed in months and he blinked several times when the hood was held between his hands, the absence foreign. He could feel the vulnerability of his nose and cheekbones and where the eye slits had surrounded his sockets. Agitating…but liberating? Apollo was watching, could he still read him and see the struggle between embracing and abhorring the letting down of his guard? Midnighter joined him in front of the window and together they observed the Earth living and breathing. Midnighter imagined he could see it revolving, but the truth was the movement was too slow for that to be possible.

“I’m sorry.”

“That was fast,” Apollo said, surprised and Midnighter didn’t know what for. Generally, he was not a man who apologized to anyone about anything, but with Apollo it had always been different. Everything for Apollo, he was different. “Just…explain to me because I don’t understand. Bendix told you to break the team up, but why did you leave us?”

Samson’s trick had led Midnighter to believe many things. That he and Jack would get into a physical encounter that would leave Jack dead and him brain-damaged. That brain damage was to fester into paranoia and obsession, which would lead him to become a death-thirsty dictator of the world. Death-thirsty being a word that described Midnighter on an average day, it would have been the dictator part that concerned him in normal circumstances. But this was a kind of death-thirsty that he was not, a kind that would have him kill the one man he loved—the only man he could love—without a second thought for regulation’s sake.  
Bendix knew that planting this idea in Midnighter’s head would bring Midnighter to a self-fulfilling prophecy, although the results did not come out the same. He and Jack did fight, but Jack was currently alive, if not beaten up quite a bit, somewhere else within the Carrier. He was probably with Angie, who still had her nanite blood, which Samson claimed Midnighter would have had sucked out of her. Midnighter himself was not brain-damaged and was just as unlikely to murder Apollo now—voluntarily, anyway—as he ever was before. When he succeeded in breaking up The Authority, he had thought he was already changing things away from the false future.  
But he had still been scared, an emotion he never felt regarding himself. Out of the many things of his that Apollo owned, Midnighter’s fear was one of them. When Jenny was born it was extended to her. Anyone else’s safety, including his own, was not mandatory. He may have worked for a team that aimed for a finer world, but he never pretended to be selfless.

“Part of what Samson showed me was me turning into a monster.” Most people would have said he already was one. They never were shown a hypothetical version of him at his extremity. He apologized now because despite knowing now that it had been false, the rot it planted still spread throughout his mind. Nothing he could say would be enough justification for Apollo, whose gaze did nothing to relax him. He remembered it had been his husband who had crushed in Samson’s head; at any other time, he would have been smiling with pride at that thought. “That me was ruthless towards everyone. But the way he treated who I thought was you...”

“You could never.” Gentle voice and a hand on his.

Midnighter gave out a harsh laugh. “Of course I could! You just felt firsthand what could happen if my implants were controlled by someone else. Who the fuck knows what I might be if it happens again? Or if they were broken? I don’t even fucking know if—“

“Midnighter,” Apollo drew him towards him, hands on his shoulders. The perceptible heat that always radiated from Apollo’s skin warmed Midnighter where his husband’s palms held him. That had been another thing out of the million he had missed so much. With Apollo, he was never cold, “even through mind-control you got yourself talking to me. You even told me to kill you.”

“What the fuck else was I supposed to--?”

“You really think I could live with myself if I did that? God…” Something cracked in Apollo’s voice. He let go of Midnighter and pinched the bridge of his nose. Midnighter could see that he wasn’t anywhere near tears so much as the stress and post-battle exhaustion was getting to him. If either man had the choice, both would not be having this conversation at this moment, it was too soon after so much. But if they didn’t talk now, there was the chance that they never would. “Never mind, that’s not what’s important. What is is that this isn’t the first time you were brainwashed. Remember John Clay?”

Midnighter rolled his eyes. It was almost a relief to recall someone so trivial in comparison to recent events. “How could I forget?”

“Then you remember fighting through that one too, right?” Apollo looked up at him again, eyebrow lifted in curiosity. “You know you’re stronger than you’re saying you are. What’s with the self-pity? This isn’t you.”

“I left you to make sure I didn’t kill you,” said Midnighter, an edge in his words. “I’m not pitying myself, I’m pissed because it almost happened anyway. Don’t tell me it’s Bendix’s fault—“ He held up a hand as Apollo tried to interrupt him, “—I fucking know it’s Bendix’s fault. If either of us could kill him anymore, we would. But that doesn’t change that there is still the possibility that I could hurt you. It doesn’t change that because of that possibility I missed out on my daughter growing up and you being angry that I wasn’t there for you.”

“I’m not angry…”

“Oh, fuck your pretenses.” Midnighter scowled at him. “Even you don’t have that kind of patience. I left you without explanation and stayed away for three years. You tried so hard to fix what you didn’t even know was wrong and I wouldn’t let you. Nobody in their right mind wouldn’t hate their husband for that and…and think about moving on.”

“Maybe I’m not in my right mind,” Apollo answered, leaning away from Midnighter whereas their knees were almost touching before. It was an unconscious move, but Midnighter noticed it and bit his own tongue as hard as he could. There were a few moments of stony silence before Apollo finally broke down and admitted, “Okay, you’re right. I fucking hated you.”

“There we go,” Midnighter said and his husband glared at him.

“What, you think you’ve won for being right? Like you said, I’d be nuts if I put up with your shit and didn’t think anything about it. I knew there was a good reason you left and that kept me from wanting to find you and kill you for the first year or so. But do you know how much you put Jenny through?”

“I saw—“

“Well, I still fucking hate you for that because at least one of us has to be a good parent,” Apollo snapped. Most things in life, due to the implants, were predictable for Midnighter. Not only could he see up to a million scenarios for a fight, he never could lose track of time as he always knew the exact minute. People bored the hell out of him because he heard what they were going to say before they said it. He had the option of looking up the scenarios that would have made this conversation go the best possible route, although he not once did that to Apollo in an argument before and he did not mean this to be the first time. But when he heard the venom in his husband’s tone, he actually started in surprise, an emotion he thought had been programmed out of him all those years ago when he was made into what he was now. “I knew there was an important reason, I knew it, but there’s no excuse for why you couldn’t have explained this to me. When you left me to raise our daughter, who did not come out of this unscathed as you well know, you fucked her over as much as you did me. I can’t tell you how many nights she asked me why you weren’t home and if I knew where you were and I had to give her some stupid answer about you doing what’s best for us. And then I’d never was able to explain how you were doing what’s best for us. It would have been nice to know, Midnighter, that some me from the future told you that you had to go away. At least I would have been able to give her that, at least I would have had that.”

Apollo was shaking and Midnighter, though he felt his implants warn against it, had to reach out his hand towards him. When Apollo shrunk back, he insisted and touched one of his husband’s cheeks with the tips of his fingers before his arm was slapped away. Because of the Sun God’s enormous amount of restraint, the hit didn’t do nearly as much damage as it could have. But the bones of Midnighter’s forearm still complained at the impact.

“Don’t you touch me,” Apollo said, seething. But when Midnighter moved his pained arm to his lap, his face softened with shock and shame. “Oh God, did I hurt you?”

“It’s nothing,” Midnighter assured, feeling the bruises heal. It really was nothing, worse had been done to him when they were in bed together and he knew the harm was just as unintentional now as it was then. Of course, during sex the pain had been part of the thrill. Now, Apollo moved closer to him again and examined the soft, pale inner arm, having returned to his old self.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—“ When Apollo lifted his head, a few strands of his white hair fell askew across his face, which was inches away from Midnighter’s. One of those strands clung to his mouth and Midnighter, although he desired contact before, couldn’t resist. He closed the small gap between their lips and kissed his husband with all the furious longing that had been building up for the past few years. At first Apollo was caught off guard, but after a moment he returned the kiss with much of the same enthusiasm. The temperature on Midnighter’s skin rose a few degrees from the heat emanating off Apollo’s and he welcomed the old feeling, slipping one of his hands to the back of his husband’s head and stroking his white hair, so soft against his calloused fingers. One of Apollo’s hands slid under his shirt up his back and they were pressing against each other so tight that Midnighter mourned when he broke the kiss from the need to breathe. “Um. Wow. I almost forgot about that.”

“No you didn’t,” Midnighter dismissed him, but even as he did so cupped Apollo’s jaw in his palm and looked straight into his eyes. They had been in China when they were face-to-face for the first time in too long, but it was here in their old apartment that Midnighter felt that he was genuinely looking at his husband. He saw Apollo’s busted lip, he saw the swelling on his cheeks, he saw the bruised eyes, but behind them he saw his beauty. Ravaged face and all, Apollo was gorgeous. Untainted. “You always knew how much I love you.”

“And I love you just as much,” Apollo agreed, looking confused as he sensed that this was leading up to something.

“Exactly. And that’s why I couldn’t tell you why I left, you would’ve wanted to take the risk of getting yourself dead rather than give me up. But I couldn’t let you do that.”

“Even though I was unhappy?”

“You chose to be unhappy when you could’ve given up on me,” Midnighter reminded him. He furrowed his brow. “I’m glad you did, though.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Apollo said, but he was smiling. With that smile, missing bottom tooth and all, Midnighter felt something click back into place. He felt a million times lighter, like the part he had been missing was replaced with a dizzy euphoria. He had wondered for many nights when was the last time Apollo had smiled for him and loathed that he couldn’t remember. Now, it didn’t matter. “I have a husband who doesn’t want me to be happy.”

“With anyone else but him.” Midnighter went to give Apollo another quick kiss, but then hesitated. There was more he had to say. “That risk that I might hurt you, it still exists.”

Apollo gave Midnighter a significant look and grabbed his now-healed forearm. “And I can hurt you back, I always have been. That risk was always there and I don’t see how it’s any bigger. We weren’t normal people, Midnighter, when we got together and that hasn’t changed. Don’t get paranoid just because you got a lucky shot with that power suit. I demolished that thing, by the way, so there’s no use worrying about it.” 

“And my implants?”

“I’ll tear out the brain of the next person who does that to you. If they break then the team is back together and I don’t think we’re going to let each other rule anything again anytime soon so no dictatorship for you. No more fucking government for any of us. Now stop whining and kiss me.” 

Midnighter leapt forward at this and pinned Apollo against the wall behind him with a hand at his chest. They kissed as hard as they had before, their bodies entangling, and behind his closed lids Midnighter saw his husband’s halo brightening. He had been staying up until dawn more recently than he had in his life, fantasizing while resting in lonely shelters of spotting that halo flying up to meet the rising sun. He had imagined in detail the prominent muscles in his husband’s back, the curve of his spine, his arms spread wide. Those arms tightened around him now, fingers pinching at his shoulders. He slipped a hand down, tracing Apollo’s ribs and hip, to clutch a muscled thigh. He stroked with his thumb near as he could to his husband’s groin without touching him there, teasing enough to make him moan, which turned from sensual to vehement disapproval when Midnighter loosened their embrace.

“Hey! What--?”

“Forgive me?” he asked, for the last time although he never said the other times out loud.

“Do I need to spell it out for you? No, seriously, what is it?”

Midnighter laughed and the sound spread throughout the empty room. That was good enough and he could move on to the less important concern that was niggling at him. “Ah, since you’ve asked… As much as I would like to fuck you on this floor, I just realized I’ve never seen your new house. Want to give me the grand tour?”

Apollo sighed in relief. Evidently, he had expected something more serious. “Jesus Christ, I—Yes.”

“Did you bring the couch when you moved?”

“Of course I brought the damn couch.” Apollo lifted his eyebrows, smirking. “Why, want to get reacquainted with it?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Midnighter said, guiding an arm around Apollo’s waist and pulling him up out of the seat with him. He didn’t have to fantasize anymore, didn’t have to miss anything, didn’t ever again have to be cold. With Apollo, all was in place; there was no room for a hole, heavy or otherwise. “Door. C’mon, sweetheart, I’m sure you’re still angry. Let’s see how I can make it all up to you.”


End file.
